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Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Okay, got up at 6:00 AM this morning due to staying up to watch Lost. I still love this show and cannot wait for the finale to come, but at the same time...I do not want the end to come. Who would have thought that Vincent the dog would kill the remaining survivors of Oceanic Flight 815? I knew that dog was evil. Oh shit, SPOILER ALERT. Too late, oh well.

After Lost, I went upstairs to find Tulip sleeping on her back, legs splayed and snoring contently in my spot on my side of the bed, and I had to slide the unmoving puppy over so that I could actually lie down and begin the Power Girl graphic novel that I recently picked up. Thus far it is well written and light hearted, and I am enjoying it, but the boobs...c'mon. Maybe those puppies should be toned down a bit, just a thought.

Anyhow, back in my music store days, I was working at the downtown store as an Assistant Manager...yup, movin' on up...and this one particular night was fairly calm, with only four or five customers in the store, myself and two employees. I was standing over near the cassette wall--which shows my age--when a slightly older and attractive woman came over for help finding some cassettes. She was about five and a half feet tall, medium length brown hair and she was dressed nicely in a dress, sweater and hat...possibly a beret, but I do not remember the specifics of the hat. She was soft spoken, polite and had an infectious smile; she seemed very nice.

She already had a stack of about five cassettes, each in their protective plastic security holders, and I began to help her locate other various music choices: Bob Segar, Christopher Cross, Ottmar Liebert, etc until she had about ten cassettes. I offered to set them down at counter so that she did not have to lug them around, and after picking out a few more cassettes she was nearly ready to go.

I went on my way, straightening items around the store, until the woman eventually approached to ask if she could use our phone for a moment. Of course I did not mind and I was honestly glad to be talking to someone who was actually being very nice; something that we were not used to at this particular retail store. She explained that her husband was the one who had the money and the credit cards and she wanted give him a call to come down and pick up the stack of music that she had chosen. Not an odd request, by any means, so I lead her over to the wall phone towards the center of the store.

I need to stress again that she was very nice, very polite, well dressed and attractive. It was possible that I even had a little micro-crush on her, but her kindness was different from what I was used to and even the other employees seemed thankful to have her there. She handed me the rest of the cassettes that she was holding and asked, "Can you hold these under my husband's name?"

"Sure," I said, slightly sad at the mention of a husband, but still only too happy to help.

"Great," she said, looking at the phone not sure as to whether or not there was some trick to it.

I took the cassettes, and chose a line on the phone and pressed "9" to dial out so that she could input the rest of the phone number. I began to walk back to the counter to combine all of the music into one bundle for her, when she said, "Oh yes. Put those under James Dean. My husband is James Dean."

I blinked a few times at this, and shook off the effect of her husband's name as just an unfortunate coincidence that must have caused her husband no end of torment throughout his junior high and high school experience. The woman smiled at my recognition of the name, and winked at me...she actually winked at me. I continued back to counter and removed all of the security devices from the cassettes, bundled them all together with a few rubber bands, minding to leave a slip of paper with the name James Dean written clearly on it.

At this point, the woman was chatting away on the phone, supposedly with her husband James Dean, and not wanting to loom over her, I went to the back room to grab something that I needed. On the way back to the counter, I noticed that the woman was no longer using the phone but was standing at the front of the store on the hardwood floor area, near the open double doors. The two other employees were walking towards the counter, thinking that she needed to be rung up, when the once polite and sweet woman turned with her back to the entrance and glancing between the three of us said, "Thanks for letting me use the phone." She then turned her head to the side and spit on the hardwood floor. Not just a little dribble of spit, but she completely hawked a loogie and let it fly. The three of us lowly music chain employees might as well have walked into an invisible wall as we stopped where we were, staring. She then extended both arms to their fullest, bent her knees a bit and with the widest smile--one that I would have called sweet earlier, but now would classify as diabolical--said, "Fuck YOU...mother FUCKERS," and she gave us the double middle finger. She then began to back slowly out of the store, still flipping us off and moving her arms back and forth ever maintaining the extended middle fingers. "Yeah. That's right," she said, and with a graceful one hundred and eighty degree spin, turned and walked out of the store.

All three of us and the two customers still in the store stood mouth agape. Stunned. "What the hell was that about?" one of my coworkers asked.

"Beats the hell out of me, but that is definitely unnerving," I replied. "Umm...I guess we can put these cassettes back. I don't think James Dean will be showing up any time soon to pick them up."

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About Me

My name is Don McMillan, but you can call me Donist for short. I am the author of the all-ages novel KIBBLES ’N’ BOTS (available for the Kindle and via Kindle apps), and I live in Santa Barbara, California with my wife, Amy, and our Boston terrier, Tulip. I write prose and comics, I'm a graphic designer, and I letter comic books.
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